


Oblivious

by myadamantiumheart



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Highschool AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-31
Updated: 2013-05-31
Packaged: 2017-12-13 12:37:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/824390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myadamantiumheart/pseuds/myadamantiumheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason is a soccer player and Tim is a dork and there are feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oblivious

Over his long period of observation, Tim has surmised that footballers are not really his type of people. They’re loud and obnoxious and they have sweaty hair and sweaty clothes and they kick balls around in the mud for fun. They have dumb biceps and dumb thighs and their shorts are dumb and too short, and Tim will grudgingly admit that he knows all these things because he may or may not have developed a habit of sitting under a certain tree every day after school and doing his homework while the soccer team practices on the field directly adjacent to it.

He’s totally not there because when Jason Todd runs down the opposing team’s forwards from his position as center defense, his shorts ride up and his thighs are like, obscenely exposed and sweaty and muddy and flexing. Definitely not. He definitely does not pay attention to the way Dick Grayson slidetackles people with inhuman grace and flexibility, or the way the keeper, Roy Harper, has been leaping for goals lately and letting his uniform shirt, usually untucked, ride up and flash his abs. Nor does he pay attention to Wally and Bart, the fastest sweepers in the league, and their swift sprinting.

In actuality, that’s not even a lie- he doesn’t. Because he’s too busy paying attention to Jason Todd squirting gatorade sloppily all over his red face and mouth, tilting his head back, his hair curling with sweat and his eyes closing as the liquid drips down his stubbly jawline-

So busy, in fact, that he doesn’t even notice the soccer ball heading straight for his head until the rest of the team is shouting and he’s seeing stars, a wet feeling burning the side of his face where it was slammed into the bark of the tree trunk and there is a definitely darkness creeping around the edges of his shaken vision.

“Oh,” Tim says, stunned, dropping his pencil and his copy of Macbeth onto the grass beside him. “Ow.”

“Jesus fuck,” Roy’s voice rasps, calloused fingers grasping at his chin, and Dick Grayson’s also there looking worried, and Tim’s kind of having to remember to breathe, between the pain and the pretty faces. “Christ, kid, Garth really packed ya good, di’n’t he?”

“That hurts,” he says dumbly, trying to shove Dick’s hands away with clumsy fingers when they probe through the blood to check out the cut, and then, with a burst of fireworks and pain beneath his skin- the last thing he sees is Jason’s face looking like a confusing cross between murderous and worried, and he feels kinda lame for passing out, but it’s all he can do to fall forward and not back into the tree again, so he resigns himself to it.

—

He’s always liked photography. Photos last with you forever, and they’re concrete evidence that Tim can’t help but prefer over the seeming fragility of memory- when he was younger, the only thing that would convince his parents to remember promises and past outings was a photograph.

“We never took you to the zoo before, Timothy, don’t fuss now like you’re missing some tradition-” they would say, and then Tim would be able to pull out a photograph of their trips to the zoo, and he had discovered it was enough, for a time, to get them to pay attention to him.

Then, when that stopped working, the photographs were all Tim had to remind him that, at least, he’d gotten those things.

Things that had once glittered could glitter once more in his photographs, so they lined his walls, his lockers, his binders, and his class projects.

He was practically the only kid that hung out in the photograph classroom outside of required arts credits time, and Ms. Selina always let him have free reign of the dark room- in fact, that’s where he was now, trying to ignore the itch of his stitches, running across the side of his forehead, and going through negatives, choosing and pulling out the ones he wanted prints of today. At least in here it was cool- the day outside had been miserably hot, his shirt stifling and his hair a little gross with the sweaty, muggy Gotham April.

He doesn’t want to say that Jason surprised him when he laid a hand on the table beside him, leaning over his shoulder, but the truth is- he jumped, biting his own tongue, because it startled him so.

“You’re good, kid,” Jason says, cocking an eyebrow at him, smelling like spicy deodorant and wet with the evidence of his post-practice shower. “Jumpy as fuck, but good. What’s up with you, anyway? You that shaken up by that ball to the head?”

Tim feels a little like he’s burning up and evaporating into the atmosphere.

“N-no,” he denies, scooting his chair back and slapping the covers down on his box of negatives. “It’s just, y-you know. No one comes in here after school except me, usually.” Jason’s raised eyebrow doesn’t inspire Tim’s confidence that he’s pulling off the cool and collected thing very well.

“Riiiiight. Well. The ball clearly didn’t damage you too badly, since they were able to stitch you up, so…” he trails off, cocking his head to the side and looking at Tim intently for a moment. “You wanna get coffee or somethin’? You even drink coffee? I dunno, what do nerds like you drink, tea? We can do tea.”

He’s not sure exactly what came out of his mouth but he ends up behind Jason on his motorcycle wearing a spare helmet that smells like sandalwood and cinnamon, pulling up to a coffee shop with giant bookshelves lining the walls.

It’s not so bad.

—

“You confuse me,” Jason says one afternoon, blunt and to the point, sitting on the windowsill of the photography classroom and dangling his legs out the side, his arms braced on the frame on either side. Tim doesn’t know when he started hanging out in here after practice, but Ms. Selina’s been sending him more knowing glances than usual, and he’s just- he just doesn’t know exactly what’s going on.

“I confuse you?” Tim asks, not even bothering to glance up from his binder. “I… confuse you?”

“Yeah,” Jason swivels around enough to glance over his shoulder at Tim. “Didn’t you used to date, like, the head cheerleader or some shit? That Stephanie chick? Kid, you’re all cute and cuddly, and I know for a fact the ladies love all that jazz. You could be out gettin’ whatever girl you wanted on a Friday afternoon like this, but instead you either sit out by the soccer field or sit in here fucking collating negatives.”

“Maybe I don’t want girls,” he mumbles, before he can stop himself, and he regrets it instantly.

The calculating, surprised look that Jason gives him haunts him even after he goes to bed, and he lies beneath the covers in his empty, echoing house, looking up at the ceiling and through the middle of his brain at that look for hours in the dark.

—

“You ever come to actual soccer games, Drake?” Roy Harper asks him, dropping down beside him on the grass where he’s eating his lunch this lunch hour. “Or do you just give Jay pep talks in the dark room?”

Tim chokes on his apple juice, spluttering and turning red, much to the clear amusement of Roy.

“I’m not- we’re not- no.” he says decisively, grabbing a napkin and mopping his face off.

“I’m just sayin,” the redhead leans back, looking him up and down with a mischievous grin on his face. “The team was wonderin’ if you’re a private cheerleader or if you do group engagements.” He waits for Tim to turn a few shades of dark, almost unnatural red, before he continues. “We want a do-over, Drake. Come to a game sometime, will ya? Let us prove that we don’t always hit our peanut gallery with killer concussions. I bet Dickie’ll even let us drag you along for aftergame pizza at the arcade.”

Tim isn’t going to go, he’s going to decline, he’s gonna say- I’ll stick to studying near your practices instead of ever going near a game again in my life. That’s enough support, right?

But then Roy leans in and says “I bet Jay’d like it if you cheered him on at an actual game.” and Tim has to just set his apple juice down and glare, because he knows he’s beat.

Something tells Tim that Roy wasn’t as threatened by Tim’s death stare as he’d hoped he would be.

—

The arcade is buzzing with victory, a blur around their booth- Tim’s fingers are kind of covered in pizza grease, and he’s played about fourteen games of Galaga and Dig Dug, and his breath tastes like blue raspberry ring pops even to him at this point, and he’s absolutely surrounded by the soccer team, who appears to have adopted him as their mascot now that they’ve brutalized him once with a soccer ball.

They actually picked him up at one point, which Tim found equal parts thrilling and terrifying.

Dick goes to get another few pitchers of root beer, and Roy goes to get another few baskets of hot wings and breadsticks and several more pizzas, slapping Dick’s ass as they cross paths.

Dick’s girlfriend (and also Roy’s? Because Roy is also Dick’s boyfriend? and Kory is- he doesn’t really get it yet.) is warm against his left side, and Jason’s warm against his right side, his muscular arm up on the back of the booth, cradling Tim a little bit, and his chest shaking against Tim’s shoulder as he laughs at something one of the cheerleaders says (Donna, maybe? Cassie’s older cousin, he thinks. Everyone’s connections are both fuzzy and confusing here at this table.)

It feels kind of brilliant, to be here, but then Donna’s reaching across and pressing her hand with her pink painted nails against Jason’s jaw and kissing his cheek, and Tim realizes that maybe he might be a little bit jealous, and also that he really really really wants to be not here right now.

Which is silly, because Jason’s just this soccer player that sometimes comes and bothers him in the photography lounge, and Tim’s pretty sure he does it out of some sort of misguided fascination with how dorky Tim can be. He’s not really someone that Tim should be wanting to hold hands with late at night, or someone that Tim wants to hug until he can’t smell anything but his soap and sweat and the underlying smell of grass and soccer jersey fabric.

He climbs out over Kory, who smiles benevolently and beautifully at him as she scoots back into the booth, and he makes mumbled excuses, and he goes to stand out back near the abandoned foosball table, looking at the warm spring rain falling on dingy alley pavement where the overhang doesn’t quite cover the whole expanse. He shouldn’t be surprised that someone follows him, but he is, because it’s Jason.

“You okay?” Jason asks him, his brow furrowed and his big eyelashes framing stupidly teal eyes that are clouding with concern. “You eat something bad, Tim?”

“Nah, I’m fine,” is what he’s supposed to say.

“Is Donna your girlfriend?” is what comes out of his big fat mouth instead.

Jason looks at him like he’s an idiot for a long time.

And then he grabs Tim by the edges of his windbreaker and tugs him in and kisses him, blue raspberry ring pop breath and all, until he can’t breathe, and he’s swaying up against Jason’s broad, warm chest.

“You’re kinda slow on the uptake for a kid genius, Tim,” Jason tells him. “And you’re kinda oblivious of how goddamn pretty you are, too.”

When Jason drops him back at his house, his motorcycle roaring away, Tim’s face kinda hurts from smiling too hard for too long, and his mouth kinda buzzes from kissing Jason too much (never enough) for too long (not long enough) out back of the arcade. Kissing him long enough that Dick and Roy and Wally and Donna came looking for him, and Tim flushed like a tomato at their cheers and whoops and “Finally!”s.

(Turns out Donna’s dating that foreign exchange student Raven and Tim really is kind of a big dumb oblivious idiot. Luckily? Jason likes him that way.)

—

They hold hands on the swings sometimes and Jason points out constellations, and takes him back to that coffeeshop, and Tim wears dumb pom poms to his soccer games for the entire summer season, until it gets too hot and he has to wait a few months until fall season gets cold enough.

It’s good.

—


End file.
